Poet, singer, entertainer and songwriter, Thomas Moore, dies at the age of 72. Best remembered for the lyrics of ‘The Minstrel Boy’ and ‘The Last Rose of Summer’. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron’s memoirs after his death. In his lifetime he was often referred to as ‘Anacreon Moore’.

Moore was also an accomplished satirist and poet who in Enigma wrote about the growing public debt (even back then).

Come riddle-me-ree, come riddle-me-ree,
And tell me, what my name may be.
I am nearly one hundred and thirty years old,
And therefore no chicken, as you may suppose;
Though a dwarf in my youth (as my nurses have told),
I have, ev’ry year since, been outgrowing my clothes;
Till, at last, such a corpulent giant I stand,
That if folks were to furnish me now with a suit,
It would take ev’ry morsel of scrip in the land
But to measure my bulk from the head to the foot.

Moore is often considered Ireland’s National Bard. He is commemorated in several places: by a plaque on the house where he was born, by busts at The Meetings and Central Park, New York, and by a bronze statue near Trinity College, Dublin. There is a road in Walkinstown, Dublin, named Thomas Moore Road, in a series of roads named after famous composers, locally referred to as the Musical Roads.

Image | Thomas Moore at the Meeting of the Waters | Vale of Avoca, Co Wicklow